Simple on Purpose {Pursuing Simple Living As A Family}

I think we are craving it. Simplicity.

I hear more and more women talking about it, pinning it, sharing their ideas on it over coffee.

We want simplicity because we want less stress, more time, less cleaning, less work, more fun, less debt, more of all that we love.  There’s capsule wardrobes, meal plans, technology time outs, house decluttering, homemade yogurt, marriage challenges…. All intentional efforts to bring all our attention and resources to things that bring us joy and the people that we love.

I think it’s inspiring, all this ‘purposeful’ living. It is so much more than how we manage and organize our physical possessions. When we purposefully strip away all the distractions (things of little use or joy), in the name of simplicity, we are left face to face an intimate view of each relationship. Relationships to our bodies, our spouses, our hearts, our homes, our things, our time, our kids, our money. Both the process of removing the excess and being left without the distractions begs thoughtfulness on all our relationships in terms what we avoid, neglect, nourish, hide, flaunt, attend to, ignore, use, adorn, and so on.

In January I decided this would be my year-long goal, rather ‘purging’ would be my goal. I had just read a book called the Joy of Less and thought minimalism was my new mantra. But this is felt pretty extreme, so as I learned more, I dialed it back to more ‘Simple Living’. Achieving it will be a lot of work but ultimately, freeing and I’m pretty sure it involves wine and baths, at least my version.

It won’t happen overnight, especially if want to merge this with my real, messy, kid-filled life. It’s hard to practically and theoretically clear out and reorganize with small kids underfoot, constantly demanding snacks, bunking in my room and sapping up my ‘free time’. But I developed this lifestyle over 15 years of my adult life, so I think ‘changing’ it in a year is ambitious with or without kids. Depending on the duration of the wine and bath part, maybe it’ll take two years – hard to say.

As with the majority of my life, I make it up as I go. And as with the majority of my life, I like to journal it, share it openly and honestly, and hope to find some friends who want to join in for a bit of the metaphorical road trip.

So I’ll be sharing some of the steps that I’ve been and will be taking in 2015 all in an effort to simplify. Not to tell you what you need to do, but to tell you what is working and not working for me and my family. Spoiler alert, I’m wearing the same four pairs of pants all year; fighting with my husband over chicken dinners; attempting a 5K; and removing a lot of ‘stuff’ from my house. Oh, I see you are on the edge of your seat! Stay tuned then, I even made spreadsheets…….

Is simple living something you are into? What kinds of things help you live more simply?
I’m linking up with Sarah at Sarah on Purpose for this series. She’s a fellow British Columbia blogger. Make sure to check her out!